My host sent me, about eleven o’clock in the morning, a plate of well flavoured rice and meat, and about eight in the evening a plate of couscous for my supper. The water for my drink was brackish and luke-warm.
On the 11th and following days, I inspected the town of El-Arawan. It is situated in a hollow, and surrounded by sandy hills, which extend to the west. The streets are wider than those of Timbuctoo, and equally clean. The houses, built in the same manner as at Timbuctoo, are much lower and less solid; for the sand here is not of so clayey a nature. The roofs are flat; instead of the small pieces of wood, which are used in the buildings at Timbuctoo, they here substitute the stalks of a bullrush which grows in the neighbourhood of the town. Thin rafters of ronnier wood support these reeds, which are slightly covered with sand. The magazines are very small. The houses are all of very frail construction, and their number may be five hundred, each containing about six inhabitants, including slaves. Before the doors is sprinkled a yellow kind of sand, which is found by digging to a certain depth.
El-Arawan, like Timbuctoo, possesses no resources of its own. It is the entrepot of the salt of Toudeyni, which is exported to Sansanding, on the banks of the Dhioliba. Its soil is even more barren than that of Timbuctoo. As far as the eye can reach, no trace of vegetation is to be perceived. The camels of the numerous caravans have to go a great distance for forage. Wood is so scarce, that nothing is burned but camel-dung, which is carefully collected by the slaves. This is the only fuel used even for cooking. The Moors collect their camels every six days, in order to take them to drink at the wells, which are in the environs of the town. These wells are about sixty paces deep. They employ a camel to draw up the bucket, which is made of hide. A pulley is also used. The water of these wells is brackish, warm, and very unwholesome. The springs are numerous. At the depth of four feet from the surface is found a grey sand mixed with a little clay of the same colour. This sand is tolerably firm. At the bottom of the pits there is a very white kind of earth, resembling chalk, of which I carried away a specimen. There are also some black and grey pebbles, and a small quantity of calcareous stones, of which the Moors make a brim round the wells. The place in which they are dug is flat, and surrounded by large hillock of sand. I have often seen the Moors employed in watering their camels. They have a trough of tanned hide, which stands on three supports of twisted wood. For drawing up the water they use a rope made of straw, first damped and beaten and afterwards twisted. Though water when kept in the houses is always exposed to a current of air, it is invariably warm, and consequently very disagreeable for drinking.
Many Moors and negroes, impelled by curiosity, followed me in the streets. Some asked for snuff; in vain did I assure them that I had none, and never used any, they would not relinquish the attack, and they called me christian as the greatest insult they could offer me. Their vociferations were accompanied by threatening gestures. I began to fear that I should lose my temper, and that the affair might become serious. I hastened back to my lodging, into which my assailants followed me. An old Moor took pity on me, and reproached them for their behaviour, assuring them that I was a Musulman and a stranger, and under the protection of Kalif, who would be indignant at my being ill treated. He finally succeeded in dispersing them.
I found a great difference between the inhabitants of this place and those of Timbuctoo, where I had been well received by the Moors. The people of El-Arawan, on the other hand, looked upon me with suspicion. They could not believe, that after having passed my youth among the christians, I should voluntarily forsake their customs and resume those of my kindred. Fortunately for me, some old men more zealous, or credulous, than the rest, declared that God would support me in the way of salvation, since he had inspired me with so astonishing a resolution. They added in Arabic, “Let us thank God, that he has returned among us.”
These disagreeable occurrences induced me to appear more zealous than hitherto. I went regularly to the mosque, but, when I prostrated myself, like the disciples of the prophet, I offered up fervent prayers to God, thus endeavouring to atone for the painful sacrifice of my religion which I was outwardly compelled to make.
El-Arawan is not a place of such active trade as Timbuctoo, whence all provisions for the former place are brought, Sansanding, which is twenty-five days’ journey to the west, being too far distant to afford supplies. I was told, indeed, by several Moors, that the journey occupied a month.
El-Arawan sends, as I have before said, the salt of the mines of Toudeyni to Sansanding and Jamina, by caravans of Moorish merchants, who also carry tobacco, which is cultivated in Tafilet and Zawât.
This town, though inhabited by the Moors of Zawât[16] and the different countries on the banks of the Mediterranean, has no market. I never saw so dull a place. In the interior of the town there are, as at Timbuctoo straw huts for the slaves.
Bousbéhey, of which I have already spoken, is two days’ journey distant from El-Arawan, and the inhabitants of the latter place purchase cattle there, as in all parts of the interior of Africa there are no markets. Each family kills a bullock from time to time and cures the meat, by drying it in the sun. It is eaten with rice or couscous.